Friday, April 6, 2007

There are many things in Mysore that I find amazing. (The one thing that Mysoreans seem to find amazing is "How did someone like Sheela end up marrying that ugghhh?" but thats another story).

There is the huge and ornate Mysore palace (in which lives the huge and ornate king of Mysore), the 6.00 am mutton pulao, the addressing of all and sundry as "saar", breakfast for less than Rs. 10, tiny workshops where craftsmen produce the most intricate of wooden carvings, a restaurant named "RRR" which serves such spicy chilli chicken that it is rumoured to be fed to suspects by the police in order to make them "talk". Many, many more

The most amazing of them all is this guy named Dr. K. R. I. Jagdish. He is famous for curing severe cases of slipped disc, cervical spondylitis and allied ailments, but is much more than that. I am told that he cures stuff like diabetes and asthma too.

Any way, I landed up there because young Sheela (my sweet and long suffering wife) had spondylitis trouble. Caused, no doubt, by continuously having to crane her neck to see if I'm hitting the Malpuris or the rabdi in the fridge. She was in considerable pain and we eventually landed up at our orthopaedic surgeon's clinic.

He made us click a few X-rays and promptly diagnosed it as spondylitis. He chattily carried on an interesting conversation about El five and El six or something like that which would have been really entertaining if I could understand a word of it. They could be Mexican cities for all I knew, or weather conditions (I've heard of El nino). An airline, perhaps, like El Al.But I digress. Well, he recommended physiotherapy, and Sheela soon felt better. But the pain never really went away. To make matters worse for me, the words "pain" and "neck" used in the same sentence would usually end up in someone cracking a silly juvenile joke about me. With a dignified "Ha", I would take that as a cue to disappear, the better to preserve my self respect.

Eventually, to cut a long story short ("too late", I hear you say) we landed up in a distant suburb of Mysore. Dr. Jagdish, ( who endearingly calls himself "Jag" and his treatment "Jag Therapy") started work at 8.00 am. We had been warned that there would be a long wait, so we landed up at 7.45. There were 12 people ahead of us. It was a good hour before our turn came and I marched in with Sheela to find a 70 year old guy wearing shorts and chatting with two assistants, one American and one Japanese. Talk about incongruous. He had a disarming smile and a gently sarcastic tone of voice. He holds daal as the root of all evil because when we answered in the affirmative to his question whether we consumed it, he gave us the kind of lookyour cardiologist would give you if you told him you ate 12-egg omelettes and half a pound of bacon for breakfast each morning. Horrified! After a little tirade against the poisonous nature of daal, he asked Sheela to lie down and felt her neck. He promptly said the same Spanish things (El this and that) that our orthopaedic surgeon had said. Amazing! Without any X-rays too! He said it was a very mild case and would cease to bother her, provided of course she stopped eating the poison (daal).

He held her arm and gently moved it around. Then he said he was going to manipulateher joints and it might hurt a bit. Before she could say "daal", he had twisted her arm andneck and sent a lot of joints in there going "snap". Sheela hasn't felt the pain since. He gaveher some exercises to do and strict instructions to have nothing to do with daal, and we left.

Know the most amazing thing? This whole treatment is free. He does not charge a penny otherthan a one time Rs. 50 registration fee which entitles you to see him as often as you like, forever. Even that is waived if you tell them you cant afford it, as some poor people do. There is a charity box kept near the reception where you can contribute but it is voluntary and unsupervised. In my entire life I have not seen anything like this anywhere. You're not even asked or urged for a donation.

I was moved. This Jag, I learnt later, practises for half a year in Brunei. The other half is inMysore. As far as I can see, he lives entirely on voluntary contribution and invites people tolive with him and learn his science, free of charge. Even the cynic in me could not see any ulterior motive or hidden agenda. And he really does work miracles with slipped disc cases.Many people who considered themselves crippled for life are today completely cured.Sheela met a family she knew, a wealthy businessman's, doing voluntary service at Jag's,eternally grateful to him for making someone in the family walk again.

Really amazing, Mysore.

P.S. Several people have asked me for jag's contact details. Here they are

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comments:

Your story on the guy you willingly go to, to have your arm twisted prompts me to recall my take on a bone-setter from Singiripalayam, where the treatment has grown into a cottage industry. My wife faced the music from S K Venkatesh of Singiripalayam, but it had its fall out on my home front. If you care to know how, spend time reading My Household under New Management

Narendra~ Thank you for inviting me to view your blog! I was captivated with your stories. I guess I really didn't notice that you are from a completely different country than I am! lol Go figure for me to miss something like that!

Anyways, this healing/Jag doctor sounds absolutely wonderful. Almost like our chiropractors that we use over here. I have to admit that I am in to see one as often as I can afford to.

It would be really nice if our healers/doctors in this country would be so generous with their talents and healing techniques and use them for the greater good, instead of mostly for the money. Sad, but mostly true. :(

I am happy that your wife is feeling better now. It sounds like you have a wonderful, and close knit family life at home. Otherwise why would they tease and laugh at your mannerisms when they are really only something that a family member could really appreciate.

Oops...forgot to mention that I will be placing your joke that you left for me on my site today, along with your link. After I let it run it's course I will transfer it to a post so that it will go into my archives so that people can still see it later.

You have an amazingly funny blog! Your keen observations about ordinary events and writing them in humorous way is great! I am a proud Mysorean living in the US. Interesting story about K.R.I. Jagadish. I met him too a few times, he talked about the evil daal to us too. Unfortunately, it's our staple as vegetarians! I know that even cancer patients have been helped by him tremendously. He is the official physician for the sultan of Brunei! His book on home remedies is amazing. FYI...he lost his wife to cancer not long ago. So sad and ironic I think.